TAP is coming in March to the Big Blue Bus!

TAP is coming to Santa Monica Big Blue Bus!
Starting March 2015, you can pay with Stored Value, an EZ transit pass on your TAP card or with your Access ID card. You no longer need to show your card to the bus operator. Instead, tap your card on the validator as you board the bus. For fast and convenient boarding:

Tap your card on the validator.

Look for the green screen that shows your card is valid.

Board the bus and enjoy the ride.

TAP is a durable plastic card that can be used again and again for faster, safer boarding. Load your TAP card ahead of time for seamless travel throughout LA County.

This is a big deal because the Big Blue Bus, while based in Santa Monica, is one of the larger muni bus lines in Los Angeles County. The Big Blue Bus also provides service well beyond Santa Monica’s borders to important destinations, including downtown Santa Monica, the beach, LAX and UCLA, among others. Here’s the route map (click on it to see larger version).

Answer to a question I know many will ask: stored value purchased from Metro (at our ticket machines, taptogo.net, by phone or from a Metro vendor) can be used to pay fares on the Big Blue Bus in March and all agencies that participate in TAP.

Barring any new announcements, BBB management may be as clueless as the Metro honchos who blessed the original TAP web site ‘design’. I was going to trot out the ObStevieWonder joke but it occurs to me, is TAPTOGO even handicap accessible?

As long as Metro is totally dependent on a contractor (Cubic) to maintain and improve TAPTOGO the latter will milk the relationship to the fullest. Metro still doesn’t seem technically competent or ‘transparent’ enough yet to involve customers with TAP upgrades.

Since the Minister has neglected his duties, Dra, the answer is no. Your 30-day LACMTA (Metro) pass is only good on routes operated by LACMTA (Metro). So that will not work on a Santa Monica (Municipal) Big Blue Bus, sorry.

Of course, if we had a unified regional fare tariff in the greater Los Angeles area, this might not be a problem, but for now, the decision-makers in Southern California would really rather you lease a shiny new automobile from their campaign-contributing dealer friends.

If you are transferring with a mag stripe card from BBB to Metro you need to buy a paper transfer. If you are transferring to BBB from Metro, you can load it on your TAP. Note: you can’t load an interagency transfer into TAP aboard the BBB buses right now.

BBB is supposed to be issuing chipped paper TAP tickets (single-use) to riders who request them (and are transferring to gated rail stations such as Rapid 7 to Wilshire/Western).

In practice, this takes much back-and-forth with the increasingly flustered operator, who is busy enough dealing with Westside traffic. And then if in fact the chip in your paper TAP ticket actually works, well, then consider yourself lucky!

Metrolink runs on a distance based fare system (requires TAP-in AND TAP-out), every other municipal agency runs on a flat rate system (TAP-in only).

Unless Metrolink adopts a flat rate system (they will never agree to that idea) or other municipal agencies adopt a distance based fare system (they don’t like that idea either), we’ll never have 100% full compatibility.

Of course doesn’t mean it can’t be done; ClipperCard does the same exact thing with flat rate fare MUNIs and distance based fare BART and Caltrain.